cape cod marlin 23

[grumol]

another unusual boat i''ve found: 1963 cape cod marlin 23'', full keel, inboard -- designed by herreshoff -- anybody know of this boat -- thanks, bob

[Jeff_H]

I remember these boat from when they were new. As a 13 year old, I thought they were the most perfect pocket cruisers that there ever could be. Of course that was some 39 years ago.

Looking back on these boats today I would say that they are still charming little boats. I have gotten to sail on one some 20 or so years ago. It seemed to sail nicely offering no bad manners except for a fair amount more weather helm than I would have expected. By modern standards they would be comparatively slow.

They were reasonably well constructed for era and Halsey Herreshoff did a wonderful job modeling the hull which I believe is an updated version of the Herreshoff Fish Class.

One issue that would concern me was a practice that Cape Cod had of not gelcoating the cabin sides to allow more light down below. Over time this ungelcoated glass is likely to UV degrade. I had to replace a 1970''s era hatch that was made that way on an earlier boat of mine. This potentially weakens the cabin sides. A lot of these boats had the cabin sides pained early on so this may not be a problem on the boat you are looking at.

Regards,
Jeff

[tonygogo]

I just bought a CCSB Marlin and would appreciate more info about the weather helm...thanks John Ehlers